Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

I recognized them as duplicates that would fit the house locks, Mother’s office door, her car’s ignition and trunk. But here was something odd: three small, similar keys attached to their own circle of metal, which was in turn clipped to the key ring. As I fingered them, hope jolted to life again.
    I tried them first on the desk drawers. None fit. With mounting excitement I inserted each of them into all the file cabinet locks. “Turn,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Open it!”
    Nothing happened. The file drawers with their lode of secrets remained shut tight.
    “God damn it!” I slammed a foot against one of the cabinets. Then, alarmed, I bent to check for dents or scratches, anything that would give me away. The oak surface was unmarred.
    Slapping the keys against my thigh, I turned in a circle. I skimmed bookshelves, focused momentarily on a small print of Escher’s strange drawing “Belvedere,” in which nothing was what it seemed at first glance. An odd choice for a woman with Mother’s refined taste to hang on her wall, but perhaps not odd for a psychologist who sat in this room writing about people with warped perceptions.
    I slid open one of the closet’s louvered doors and found exactly what I expected on the shelves: packages of laser paper, boxes of stationery, myriad other office supplies. On the floor, pushed back against the wall under the bottom shelf, were four fireproof boxes, three smaller ones lined up in front of a single large one.
    I knew Mother kept important documents in these boxes, and I wouldn’t find any secrets hidden in them. Still, I got down on my knees, favoring the one that ached, and slid them forward. One was no more than a foot long, a couple were about eighteen inches long and looked like file boxes. The last was close to two feet. They were heavy; the shells of gray space-age plastic had steel liners. All were locked, but maybe I had the keys in my hand.
    I tried a key on a medium-sized box. It didn’t work. I tried another key. The lock popped open with a satisfying click, and I lifted the lid.
    The contents were in perfect order. An expanding file had been set inside the box, and within the labeled divisions were all of our insurance papers, for the house, our three cars, health care, plus records of car and home repairs. I closed the lid, disappointed at finding exactly what I’d expected.
    The next box opened on the first try. It was filled to capacity with manila envelopes.
    They weren’t sealed, just closed with their little gold butterfly clasps. Each was labeled on the outside in my mother’s graceful clear handwriting, and contained exactly what she’d written: Girls’ vaccination records, Rachel’s report cards, Michelle’s report cards , and so on. She’d kept the minutiae of our progress through school, our grade school drawings and high school essays, the little awards and certificates of accomplishment we’d received along the way. Safe in a box that not even fire could destroy.
    I sat back with one of my science fair prize certificates in my hand. Our mother, who considered so little worth saving, had preserved every scrap of her daughters’ lives. Suddenly my actions, my doubts, the questions that had swirled in my mind for weeks seemed the worst kind of betrayal. 
    Then I looked at the other two boxes and my guilt vanished as curiosity took over. I stuffed the science fair certificate into its envelope and put all the envelopes back as I’d found them.
    None of the keys fit the largest box. I let it go for the moment and moved on to the smallest one. It opened easily, but inside I found only the key to Mother’s safe deposit box and a small green notebook full of account numbers. I closed the lid and locked it.
    I ran my fingers across the oblong bulk of the inaccessible box and tried to reason with myself. It wasn’t worth any more effort. The odds were it contained nothing but household records.
    And yet.
    Mother hadn’t left the key lying around, any more than she’d left the keys to the file cabinets.
    For ten minutes I worked on it, sticking each little key into the lock, trying to twist it, pulling it out and starting over, again and again with no result. Frustration fueled my determination. I’d get the damned thing open if it killed me. If I found a method that worked, it might work on the file cabinets too.
    I tried the wire, a paper clip, the nail file. Sometimes I heard a faint click inside the lock, but it